ALBUMS
THE IDLER WHEEL … FIONA APPLE 2012
Apple’s fourth album is full of dualities: inner demons and materialized threats; arch observations and moments of true sadness; white-hot anger and tender love. The tension between those elements animates this unpredictable, skeletal album, which finds Apple in full vocal bloom as she gives words workouts: just hear how alone on the shambolic “Left Alone” is stretched, again and again, to its breaking point.
DAMN. KENDRICK LAMAR 2017
Picking just one of Lamar’s releases for a decade-end list is tricky—even his 2016 collection of demos, is a solid hip-hop record. But with 2017’s Lamar dived is a snapshot of an artist at the peak of his powers who’s prepping to take himself higher.
